On the Other Side of the Tunnel
by The Inspired Quill
Summary: On their latest mission, Amy and Dan run into a tunnel to escape from some Vesper agents. However, nothing could have prepared them for what was on the other side of the tunnel...
1. Chapter 1

**On the Other Side of the Tunnel**

**A/N: **I experienced an "Attack of the Plot Bunny" a week ago, and here is the result. Hopefully it's not a bad fanfiction (if it is, tell me in a review). The genre of this story will be Humour, but this chapter isn't as humorous as the rest will be since it's only the prologue and leads up to the main part of the story.

**Disclaimer: I do not own.**

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

Underneath a cloudy, gray sky, Amy and Dan Cahill were in trouble. They were running for their lives, chased by a horde of angry guards—Vesper spies, no doubt. The ring was clasped tightly in Amy's hand, and she was already starting to tire. She hoped Dan's asthma wouldn't act up, for they needed to find Fiske and Nellie immediately. A fresh wave of worry gave her a surge of energy, and she pounded on. Each footstep seemed to match the beating of her heart and the ragged breaths she was taking.

In other words, it was a normal day for the two Cahill children, now also Madrigal agents.

"Stop!" the lead guard howled, hot on their heels. "The ring rightfully belongs to us! Give it back!" His red, pudgy face contorted into a fierce and angry expression. He had not liked the fact that these children had sneaked into his building and then recaptured the ring. Now they were escaping, and he couldn't possibly allow that to happen. If his boss heard of this—he concentrated harder on running. Now he thought that he should have left his large overcoat back in the office, and a small bead of sweat ran down the back of his neck.

The other guards joined in, creating a cacophony of angry sounds. It reminded Amy of a flock of angry birds—vultures, maybe—spiraling in for the kill.

At least, Amy was glad these were amateur agents. She didn't want to know what their chances of stealing back the ring would have been if they were confronted by top-notch Vespers. It had been enough already, sneaking into the large, winding building and incapacitating the guards and finding the ring. But now, she had no time to think about that. It was over and done with, and now she was facing a new problem—the new, fresh wave of guards.

Dan suddenly grabbed Amy's dark sweater, pulling her to a halt. "This way," he gasped, jerking his head at an alley in the distance. It was barely visible, behind some little brick houses. The duo quickly skirted around garbage cans, careful not to knock them down, and bolted for the shadows.

"Duck!" Dan yelled at her.

As soon as Amy did so, she saw—or rather, she smelled—something hurtle over her head and land somewhere off to the right. She wasn't keen on knowing what it was.

Then they continued to run towards the alley that was getting closer and closer, an end to this winding maze.

_Just a bit more,_ Amy thought, _and then we'll be safe._

_For a little while, at least_, she added.

Then they rounded a brick corner and flew into welcome darkness.

Amy heard something _squish_ under her shoe, and she cringed slightly, but shook it off. She'd encountered worse during the Clue Hunt. That was another event she'd rather not dwell on.

"Dan?" she whispered. Her eyes were wide, trying to capture as much light as she could. The overcast sky had not provided much light outside, and now in the alley, there was even less to see by. Her brother's outline was barely visible.

"Right here," he whispered back.

"Do you think—" she started to say.

He already knew her question. "I can't hear them."

"I don't want to find out what's at the end of this alley. Maybe we should just wait here." Her hand reached out and brushed the bricks of the wall, relieved there were no cobwebs.

"They'll find us eventually," Dan reasoned. "And there should be a back way out of this. I'll lead, if you're so scared of the dark." Unknown to the two Cahills, a light started to appear behind them in the alley. If they had noticed, perhaps they could have prevented all the troubles that were to follow.

"I am not scared!" Amy retorted. "I just—"

Whatever she was going to say next was cut off as the guards stepped into the alley.

"There!" cried the lead guard, pointing. The others surged forward like an ocean wave. They had no problem spotting the duo.

Amy and Dan turned and ran towards a faint light that was shining in the distance.

_Yes!_ Amy thought. _This is just a short alley; we'll be out soon. In the open, we can lose them more easily. And Nellie and Fiske will be able to find us._

However, as they got closer, both Cahills could see something was wrong.

The light was not from the end of the alley. For one, Amy was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be sparkly purple. Still, whatever it was, it had to be better than being captured by the guards.

They ran into the light just as the lead guard dived towards Dan, his dark coat flapping like a hummingbird's wings.

Once they were fully in the light, it started to spin rapidly around and around. The darkness of the alley faded, and the brightness made them squint uncomfortably. The Cahill boy felt as if he was hanging from a roller coaster going at a hundred miles per hour. To make matters worse, he felt as if he was hanging from one hand, which slipped a little more each time the coaster did a loop-de-loop. He didn't know if he screamed or not, because there was no sound in the tunnel. The blood roaring in his ears was the loudest sound.

In reality, Dan and Amy were simply spiraling in the tunnel, being thrown around like cloths in a washing machine.

As waves upon waves of nausea danced around them, Amy thought she could vaguely see an end to this whirlwind. There was some grass, and a few flowers, and in the distance, a—

She saw no more as both Cahills blacked out.

When her mind finally cleared, Amy gasped at the landscape in shock. She was lying on her side in the grassy meadow, Dan a few feet beside her.

This was not the alley; that was for sure.

In fact, this did not even look vaguely recognizable.

One question popped into her mind: Where was this place?


	2. Chapter 2

**On the Other Side of the Tunnel**

**Chapter Two**

Shakily, Amy stood up and surveyed the scene in front of her. No matter how much she looked, her mind simply couldn't process the information. This surely couldn't be real, could it? It had to be some kind of twisted dream or maybe an optical illusion. This only appeared in storybooks and fairytales, not real life.

"This is…" Dan breathed slowly, eyes wide. Amy thought that if his eyes got any wider they'd pop out of their sockets. That would not be a sight she wanted to see.

Amy expected her brother to say something like 'bizarre, 'crazy', or 'unbelievable.' Any of the three would be correct.

"…sweet!" he finished, grinning.

Amy sighed. _Dan, my dweeb of a brother. Of course he'd say something like that_.

She looked out at the land one more time. It appeared that they were on the top of a cliff stretching out over the landscape below. A small, dusty path curved around the cliff, leading to the meadow below. The long, unkempt grasses swayed in the gentle breeze. In the distance stretched a vast stone wall, with a single non-descript door in the center. What was weirdest, though, was that everything—the flowers, trees, and grass—seemed to be made out of candy.

Dan had already noticed the odd appearances, and his earlier worries with the Vespers were forgotten.

When Amy turned around, he was on his hands and knees, his head buried in the tall grass. A few loose blades of grass stuck to his hair. She decided not to tell him how ridiculous he looked.

"It smells like peppermint," Dan exclaimed, inhaling loudly. He held up a fistful of grass, head still buried. "Want some, Amy?"

She turned away. "No, thanks." Something didn't seem right about this place. It wasn't an air of danger and there was no immediate cause for alarm, but Amy had a sinking suspicion that there was more to the landscape than the eye could see.

A moment later, she heard loud chewing, and then—"Oh, yuck! This is disgusting! Gross!" Amy stepped back as Dan spat the "candy" out all over the grass. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

Then he seemed to see Amy's slightly concerned look. "It's not that it was inedible, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't poisonous. It just wasn't candy, and tasted horrible—like dark green cough medicine." He paused. "Oh, wait—I think there's a piece stuck in my teeth."

Amy sighed again as Dan fished it out.

"So," he started. He came to stand beside her, looking out. He seemed to have completely recovered from the ordeal. "What do we do now?"

Before she could respond, the earth started to tremble violently. Instinctively they grasped each other for balance. Then, in the middle of ground they were standing on, a large neon sign shot up straight from the ground. It was in the shape of an arrow and it had the words THAT WAY printed on it. Green lights surrounded it, blinking rapidly.

When the shaking had ceased, Dan broke the silence. "I guess that answers my question."

He and Amy set down the cliff, both agreeing that they should follow the sign's point. The trail was long and bumpy, covered by rocks where the grass had worn away. The rocks may have been made out of chocolate, but after the incident with the grass, Dan was hesitant to try anything else.

A few trees jutted out from the ground, looking out of place in the flat meadow. Their long leaves trailed to the ground and the trunks were dark and worn, as if the trees hardly had the energy to continue living.

As the path ended and gave way to the long grass, Amy stopped suddenly.

Dan almost bumped into her. "What?" he asked crossly.

"Look," she marveled, spreading her arms. Her voice seemed small compared to the expanse of the land. "It's all so vast, so large. And we're the only ones here." On the cliff, everything had seemed smaller—but she hadn't been actually looking; there, she was more concerned about where they were. Now that they were on the meadow, Amy and Dan could see the grass spread widely, continuing until it reached the horizon. The wall stretched out in front of them, seeming as long as the reach of the grass, and matching the grass as both stretched to the horizon.

The sky was a fine blue, undisturbed by clouds. The entire scene made Amy wonder if they were in a scene in a picture book. It would offer one explanation, even if the very idea seemed impossible. But that tunnel they had gone through was in an alley, a dark and slimy and not very nice alley. It didn't make sense that a place such as this would be the destination.

Amy contemplated these thoughts as she and Dan waded through the long grass. They were even longer now, knee-high, where before they had only been ankle-high. The trees were also growing higher, stretching into the sky and casting long shadows on the grass. Yet the wall they were heading to, as directed by the sign, still loomed in the distance, looking no closer than before.

Dan finally broke the silence. "How long have we been walking?"

Amy glanced at him, ducking to avoid the branches of a low-hanging tree. "Are you tired?"

He shook his head. "No." He paused. "Don't you find it weird that the grass and trees keep getting taller?" Then his eyes bugged out as a thought struck him. "Maybe we're shrinking! Maybe it's not the stuff around us—maybe it's us!"

"No, Dan," said Amy, rolling her eyes. Leave it to him to think of something as absurd as that. While this land was definitely not normal, she didn't think it possessed magical powers. That would be too much. "If we were really shrinking—which we are not—everything would become wider as well as taller. These blades of grass," she fingered one, which was easily done since they were now up to her waist, "have the same widths as the grass up on that cliff. It's just tall grass; there's nothing weird about that."

He seemed to accept her explanation. "Someone forgot to mow the grass, then."

Both Cahills fell into silence again, continuing to push apart the increasingly-taller blades of grass and wading forward. It was hardly easier than wading through a swimming pool now, and although Amy didn't want to admit it, she was starting to get tired. Was going this way really what they were supposed to do?

"Are you sure we're supposed to do this?" Amy questioned out loud, looking at her brother again. He was trying to push aside a particularly stubborn clump of grass.

He looked up helplessly. "What? Oh, yeah, I guess. That's what the sign said." Turning and shielding his eyes from the sunlight that still managed to penetrate through the trees, he squinted at the cliff they had come from. "It's still up there."

Amy turned to look as well. It was a barely visible green dot on the cliff that now looked more like a bump in the ground. Judging the distances from the cliff and to the wall, she declared, "We're three-quarters of the way, I think."

Her brother shrugged, and moved forward around the clump of grass. "Only? I thought it wouldn't be that long." Another thought struck him. "What if the wall's moving back each time we take a step?" He glanced at the wall, as if hoping he could see it shift.

Once again, Amy shot down his theory. "Something that large and long can't move by itself so silently," she reasoned. "I think it was just farther than we thought."

Dan simply nodded in reply. They both didn't have the energy to have long conversations anymore.

Trudging through the grass took longer than either of them expected. Each footstep was slow and heavy, and their breaths were laboured.

Amy wished a bridge would pop out of the ground, or at least the grass would get shorter. Was it really worth all this energy to get to the wall?

She was maneuvering around the trunk of a particularly large tree when she heard Dan exclaim, "Hey! The grass is shorter here!"

Looking down, she realized it had grown shorter. It was only knee height now. Was it because of her wish? She tried again, thinking _I wish the grass was only ankle-height_.

"There's something happening," Dan declared happily. "The grass grew shorter again. Weird, huh?"

Amy smiled softly in reply. She would try one more time before telling Dan. _I wish the grass was only an illusion and the ground is bare and flat_.

"Amy!" Dan yelped. He had fallen, since the grass was no longer there to support his weight. When he came up again, he was grinning. "There's no grass anymore!" Then he looked at her suspiciously. "How did you do it?"

Before answering, Amy hesitantly reached down to touch the grass and her hand went right through the illusion. He was right—it was only a picture now; there was no grass. Puzzled, she asked, "How did you know I did it?"

"It wasn't me," he answered, "and there's no one else here. Plus, I doubt the ground did that itself—it doesn't seem like something that would happen here."

Their fortune brought new energy, and both raced across the remaining area, eager to reach the wall. Now that they were close enough, they saw a sign plastered on the door. It read, _EXIT._

Dan looked at Amy and she saw the question in his eyes: _Is this really the end?_

He took the piece of paper in his hand and glanced at it. "It says nothing else," he muttered, and tossed it away. The wind caught it and turned it over and over.

"Wait—I think I saw something on the back," Amy called, and rushed forward to grab the piece of paper before the wind could take it further. With a sinking heart, she read aloud the words. "'_Just kidding. This is only the beginning.'"_

Dan walked over to her as she continued. "There's something on the bottom, too," she told him. "It says, '_Warning: There are obstacles you must face before you reach the real exit. Some may not be able to handle them. If you are one of them, please turn back now.' _Turn back where?" she wondered. Without waiting for an answer, she continued to read. "'_We are not responsible for whatever happens.'"_

She met Dan's eyes. "Do we go in?"

"It does lead to the exit," he pointed out. "And it can't be that bad, can it? I mean, no worse than the Clue Hunt or the Vespers?"

Amy shuddered to think of something even worse than the Clue Hunt or the Vespers. But this place didn't seem to have any attachments to the world they came from, and so far, there hadn't been dangers. "I think we can chance it," she said slowly. "If anything happens, we can return here, right?"

"Yeah," agreed Dan, kicking at a chocolate rock. "It's either this or stay in the land of gross candy forever. So we'll go in."

Reluctantly, Amy took the lead and pushed open the door. It creaked loudly, causing both to flinch. They stepped through, and entered a place so different from the meadow it might as well have been another world.

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><p>Thanks for reading. Reviews are greatly appreciated.<p> 


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